The boys in the rap room best clear a space for the Kansas City hip-hop beauty Tanya Johnston, who operates under the moniker Sole.

Make no mistake, this woman can sing – but she’s also a rapper who re lates stories of street-corner society in nimble, lyric licks.

Her often profane choice of words would make most of the girls in R&B blush, but her tough attitude, assured MC-ing and stunning good looks will endear her to male and female fans.

Her lyrics sound as if Sole is as hard as nails, as she cocks her Glock to foil a carjacking, parties through the night and tells you what kind of “ho” she is on the power-packed “Spell My Name Right.”

Yet on the disc’s best rap – “4, 5, 6” – she exposes her sensitive side as she explains why her man shouldn’t cheat on her. There’s also a great Latin-influenced track, “It Wasn’t Me.”

Sole, a strong and independent woman who sings powerful rhymes, is the freshest new arrival in the super macho world of rap.

* THE VERY BEST OF MARILYN MONROE; Marilyn Monroe, Stardust Records

Before her death in 1962, Marilyn Monroe made her mark in movies as an actress with a flair for drama and a comic touch. She also made her mark as a vocalist.

The blonde bombshell’s breathy, little-girl voice fit her film characters in “Some Like It Hot,” “How to Marry a Millionaire” and “River of No Return,” to name a few.

Now, “The Very Best of Marilyn Monroe” collects 19 of her movie vocal turns as well as her famous “Happy Birthday, Mr. President,” which she sang to John F. Kennedy at Madison Square Garden.

Her version of “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” and “A Little Girl From Little Rock,” a duet with Jane Russell, are among the disc’s most memorable moments. It is an unusual collection that illustrates one of MM’s most overlooked facets – her voice.

The 20 pages of liner-note biography are a good read, but they only tap the high points of Monroe’s life.

* 7th DEADLY SIN; Ice T, Atomic Pop

Film-star gangsta Ice T is serious to the max, and his raps are delivered without a hint of humor. He’s also very thin-skinned about success, which is clear on a rap on his new disc, “7th Deadly Sin.”

In this rap, “Don’t Hate the Player,” Mr. T pities the fools who hate him because “his game is tighter than theirs, his shoes shined brighter than theirs.”

Having come from a depressing world of crack addicts and violence, T wants you to believe the myth that even these days there’s no time for anything but a hard-assed attitude. Despite his millions and continuing Hollywood work.

“Sin” is a 21-track collection of rants and raves, boasts and toasts to a joyless existence, though there are some musical elements that are quite good.

Among those is “Valuable Game,” dedicated to the usual assortment of slain rappers and how their art imitated life and, ultimately, death. “Always Wanted to Be a Hoe,” the disc’s other standout, is a scary training manual on how to coerce teenage girls into walking the street.

The life-is-cheap theme, repeated on songs like “Get Your Moneyman,” so dominates the disc that one might draw the conclusion that Ice T is trying to sound as rough and tough as he did when he incited the world with “Cop Killer.”

But everyone knows that he’s moved from the mean streets to Easy Street. On this disc, T advocates a life he’d never entertain living again.